


Here with Me

by type_40_consulting_detective



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Kidnapping, M/M, Pre-Johnlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:03:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1527305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/type_40_consulting_detective/pseuds/type_40_consulting_detective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has been kidnapped, and Sherlock Holmes is lost without his blogger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here with Me

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by "Here with Me" by Dido
> 
> Mostly un-betad, mistakes are mine.  
> Find me on [tumblr](type40consultingdetective.tumblr.com)

He runs further and faster than he ever has in his life. Every foot fall echos in the empty alley and he keep pushing. Muscles scream in protest and lungs burn, but all he thinks about it is the path. He must have gone this way, and I’ll catch him any minute.

Every street is empty.

\-----

Sherlock doesn’t hear John walking out the front door. His head is buried under a pillow, ears plugged tightly with fingers, trying not to scream. John would walk out, though. He would need ‘a bit of air’. He would walk his normal route, and return to the flat in 48 minutes, if he didn’t decide the pub looked nicer.

Sherlock spends thirty long minutes deciding what to say to him, deciding which of the 28 options would bring them quickest to a comfortable agreement. Not a happy one, not an honest one, but a place they can live with. Somewhere they both can stay, mentally safe from doubts and questions. Once he plotted out the proper words, he’s out the door to find John, to say them before John has a few pints and decided that Lestrade’s couch sounded nicer than home.

It takes 10 minutes for Sherlock to know something has gone wrong. John didn’t take his normal route, or Sherlock would have met up with him at the bridge in the park. No one at the pub has seen John tonight, and Sherlock starts to panic. His first call is to Lestrade, who curses loudly at the interruption but promises to check with dispatch and text back.

His second call is to Mycroft.

\-----

A week. One whole week, 7 days, 168 hours, 10.080 minutes, 604,800 seconds. One week from the moment he knew something was wrong. He runs a count in his head, every second thudding  like a heartbeat. Every second he prays, though he doesn’t know to who. Prays for a miracle. They’ve had more than their fair share, but Sherlock doesn’t care. One more.

Sherlock lays freezing in his bed, watching his laptop screen in rapt attention. His tea and plate have long since gone cold on the bed side table. He hasn’t eaten and barely drank anything in that week, especially after Mycroft drugged his tea and forced him to sleep a few hours. There are tiny punctures on his veins, where small doses of cocaine have kept him going, searching video feeds for any sign of the black car that John left in, or it’s female passenger.

One week, and John is still gone. One week and they are no closer to finding him alive, or… alive. He has to believe that John is still alive, just waiting for Sherlock to be clever and come to the rescue. “One more miracle. For me,” John in his head pleads. Sherlock pushes hard at the wall of exhaustion trying to crush him. It could be this minute I find him. Or this one. Every minute starts in hope, and ends in fear.

Sleeps takes Sherlock suddenly and almost violently, and his head lands on the keyboard. On the screen, a black town car passes by.

\-----

Sherlock’s phone wakes him instantly, and he scrabbles of the bed to pluck it from the floor. His laptop and blankets are piled on the floor from his nightmare induced thrashing.

“Lestrade?”

“We’ve found him.”

\-----

Sherlock goes weak when he arrives at the scene and sees John being loaded in to an ambulance. John is still, but no one is fussing about with him. Stable. Safe, for now.

“He’s doing well.” Lestrade places an arm on Sherlock’s shoulder comfortingly, and startles him.

“Well? It’s been a week.”

“And he had food and water. No one tortured him. He shot his captor with their own gun and trigger a 999 call from the neighbors. Guy was whisked off first, John’s just getting a look over to be safe.”

“I’m going with him.”

“And leave me to figure out the who and why?”

Sherlock pauses, torn between keeping John safe now, and catching whoever took him in the first place. “Five minutes, Lestrade. Then I’m in a cab.”

Five minutes turned into three hours and twenty seven minutes. There were leads to be followed while they were fresh, and a crime boss to punish, with his bare hands. Lestrade allowed him one full minute before coming in, making sure there was still something for the courts to convict. Sherlock never gave him enough credit for his knowledge of human nature. Promising a full written statement in the morning, Sherlock stumbled into Mycroft’s waiting car, and slept the 38 minutes back to Baker Street.

Back to John.

 


End file.
